Datong town under the jurisdiction of four states seven counties thirteen guards, under the jurisdiction of Datong front, rear guard (two guards to govern Datong), Datong left guard, Yunchuan Wei (two guards to govern Zuoyun County), Datong right guard, Yulin Wei (two guards to govern the right Yu County), Yanghewei, Gaoshan Wei (two guards to govern Yanggao County), Tiancheng Wei, Zhenyuwei (two guards to govern Tianzhen County), Pingyuwei (Pinglu County), Weiyuanwei (south of the right Yu County), Jingping Qianhu and other 13 guards, 823 forts, 307 piers.

At the most glorious time, Datong Town had 100,000 soldiers, and now it has just experienced many raids by the Mongolian cavalry, and even Datong City has been captured, and now there is no one in Datong Prefect, so Yang Hongzhang did not think about 100,000 male soldiers, but to solve the problem of financial resources first.

Thinking about it, Yang Hongzhang decided to temporarily set up the General Military Office in Yanggao County, and immediately sent a fast horse to ask the commanders of the remaining guards to come to Yanggao to discuss the defense of Datong, but the messenger of the order went quickly and came back quickly, but the result was that Yang Hongzhang was greatly enraged, among which the commanding fingers of Pingyuwei, Weiyuanwei, Datong Right Guard, and Yulinwei were either killed in battle or fled when the Mongols came, anyway, there is no one now, and the remaining five guards rejected Yang Hongzhang's military orders for various reasons. Especially with the command of the rear guard and two guards in Datong, Xu Fengbo and Shen Wenchao clearly told the herald that everyone is a military general of the third grade, and if Yang Hongzhang comes to Datong, they may be able to go to the Yamen of the General Military Mansion to meet, and now that Yang Hongzhang is in Yanggao, it is not good for them to leave their posts without permission.

Speaking of deserting without permission, Yang Hongzhang smiled, if it weren't for these two who deserted their posts without permission, how could the Mongolian cavalry of Gaochi Shen in Datong City capture Datong City, this is probably the first time in more than 200 years since Xu Da rebuilt Datong's sincerity. It is really a joke that the Ming Dynasty wants to rely on these people to guard the frontier, no wonder the Mongols have tried repeatedly, and tens of thousands of cavalry are like no one in Datong Town.

As a result, the first joint meeting of the commanders of various armies convened by Yang Hongzhang, the commander of the military region, was declared bankrupt. In addition to being unhappy, Yang Hongzhang was also secretly surprised, if the other four guards did not lie, the thirteen guards of Datong now only have all the commanders of the five guards close to Datong, and the seriousness of the shortage of personnel is also staggering. However, Yang Hongzhang felt that there was no need to ask the imperial court to complete the commander. Therefore, Yang Hongzhang wrote the first secret letter to Zhu Youzhen, the emperor of Chongzhen, and told him about the matter from Juyong Pass to the convening of the commander of the Thirteen Guards.

Yang Hongzhang is also obedient, and he doesn't want to give a villain like Wang Lenian a chance to sue first, and the things he did in Juyongguan, General Juyongguan will definitely seize the opportunity to discredit himself in order to clear his name. However, he is not worried about what will happen to the imperial court, after all, it is the imperial court that owes him weapons, equipment and materials. And Juyong Pass was occupied by horse thieves, and it is better to take it yourself than to take it away from horse thieves.

With the arrival of Yang Jiajun, Yanggao's popularity gradually increased, especially when the announcement of the Yamen of the General Military Mansion on recruiting people to build the city wall of Yanggao County and recruiting new soldiers came out, the people in the city rushed to tell each other, and some relatives in the surrounding villages and towns have gone out of the city to inform relatives and friends. Because the treatment of the General Military Mansion is indeed better, whether it is the people or the recruits, the treatment is beyond the past.

In particular, the announcement of recruiting new soldiers said that the infantry would be subsidized according to one tael of silver per month, and the cavalry would be subsidized according to five cents per vehicle, and if they could be selected into the elite battalion, the subsidy would be increased to two taels of silver a month, and whether they were military households or not, one person would be honored as a soldier and the whole family would be honored, and all of them would be exempted from the corresponding taxes.

However, the conditions for recruits are also very strict, requiring them to be between the ages of 16 and 35, with a household registration certificate and a certificate of no criminal record from the local yamen, and a total of 10,000 soldiers are recruited from the four prefectures and seven counties of Datong.

All the battalion officers, including Xia Dongwei, expressed concern about the scale of recruiting people and recruits, because the grain brought by General Yang from Tianjin plus the looting of Juyong Pass added up to a total of only 50,000 stones.

In this regard, Yang Hongzhang just smiled and did not explain much, but called several battalion officers together for a brief training, and let several people be responsible for the initial test of recruitment, and finally Hongzhang re-examined.

Because the conditions were so good, young people from the surrounding four states and seven counties began to gather in Yanggao the day after the announcement was posted. On the first day of the official recruitment, nearly 5,000 people poured into Yanggao.

When they came to the once dilapidated Yanggao, they found that although the city wall here is still dilapidated, the streets are very tidy, the most eye-catching thing is that the two guards and yamen have been renovated, all the streets are the soldiers of the Yang family army to maintain order, and the field is to take turns to have cavalry and infantry drills, seeing the vigorous and heroic appearance of those soldiers makes these young people full of expectations to join the Yang family army.

And when the song of serving the country was sung by thousands of people at the same time, the entire Yanggao County was ignited. On the first day, Luo Kedi, who was responsible for recruiting new soldiers, was very relieved to see the crowded crowd, but he couldn't help but feel strange when he saw the gray-haired old man in the crowd, so he asked the secretary to stand at the door with a broken horn and repeat the recruitment conditions over and over again in front of the poster.

But the crowd did not decrease, and when those gray-haired people finally came to Luo Kedi, Luo Kedi had no choice but to say patiently: "Boss, you look carefully, we are recruiting soldiers, not recruiting people, and we require an age of thirty-five years old." ”

Unexpectedly, the man rightly shook his chest and said, "General, the little one is just thirty-five this year." ”

Luo Kedi was completely speechless, and asked some of the elders in the crowd to jump out, and then said with a straight face: "Isn't it that you are also exactly thirty-five?" ”

Most of the people who were named out by the sergeant smiled awkwardly, and a few insisted that they were thirty-five. Luo Yidi was also completely speechless in this regard, so he had to say: "Since this is the case, then you can take out the certificate of the local government." ”

"This general, the small hometown is early in the Tartars, the officials are all dead, and the household registration book has also been burned, where is there any proof, but Hu Laosan can prove it to me, Hu Laosan, do you say?" The old man who was first picked out by Luo Kedi seemed to be prepared, so he said to another old man in the crowd.

Luo Kedi frowned and pondered for a while, then snatched the loudspeaker from the book office: "General Ben reiterates that if you don't have a household registration certificate, those over the age of thirty-five should not line up here, otherwise they will be punished for disrupting the order of recruitment!" You still have your Hu Laosan, don't think that General Ben is easy to talk to, and if there is such nonsense, you will hit thirty military sticks first! ”

Seeing this, the old man and Hu Laosan both shrank their necks, and those who were over the age or did not prove it were also nervous in their hearts, and finally the old man said: "General, do you need a man in the army, old and decayed...... Uh, the small cooking level is not bad. ”

Luo Kedi's eyes glared: "Come on, take it down!" ”

When everyone saw that the general was angry, they hurriedly squeezed outside, and a large area was suddenly vacated, and there were nearly a thousand people who were over the age.

Seeing that the local people were so enthusiastic, Luo Kedi naturally raised the selection criteria invisibly, and after the interview on the first day, there were only about 1,500 people who met the requirements.

Despite this, there was still a steady stream of people pouring into Yanggao County, and the next day it was Zhang Hu's turn to pass only about 1,500 people. When Sun Fei was on duty on the third day, he found that the military households in the surrounding guards began to come, so the quality increased significantly, and Sun Fei passed nearly 2,000 people in one day.

Just when the recruitment work was in full swing, Yang Hongzhang received a letter of inquiry from Xu Fengbo, the commander of the Datong avant-garde, Xu asked Yang Hongzhang very unceremoniously in the letter of inquiry, what did Yang Hongzhang want, why did the star provide subsidies wonderfully, to exempt the families of the soldiers from taxes, and why to accept the military households of the guard to join the new army, not to mention that Yang Hongzhang was the guerrilla general below who disdained it, and Xu Fengbo himself took his own guard seriously, these people who came from Tianjin did not know that the marshal was in Tianjin, There is only the General Military Mansion, and no one has heard of Tianjin Sanwei, so naturally they don't know what the commander is?

In the next few days, the recruitment continued, but every day I could receive letters of inquiry from other guards and envoys, especially Shen Wenchao, the Datong guard, who directly pointed out that Yang Hongzhang had come to the ground, so that all the ready-made soldiers in his guard had fled to Yanggao to join the new army, and if Yang Hongzhang did not take decisive measures, he would join forces with the commanders of other guards to impeach Yang Hongzhang. Yang Hongzhang still laughed at this, he is the chief soldier of Datong, he is only responsible for the court and the people of Datong, what does it have to do with him if the other guards are rotten or withdrawn?

In just seven days, Yanggao County has recruited at least 12,000 young people who have passed the preliminary examination, and there are still some remote areas that have not been able to remember to rush to Yanggao after only three days in advance of posting notices.

Yang Hongzhang was quite satisfied with this, so he continued to recruit new recruits and began the retest.

The method adopted for the re-examination was much larger than that of the initial test, that is, the 12,000 people were divided into two battalions, each with 2,000 people, and they were taken to the open space outside the four city gates in the northwest of Dong'an in Yanggao County and the battle field of the two guard yamen, and then Yang Hongzhang gave them a simple military order: stand by in place!

The herald, fearing that the people present would not hear, took a broken horn and went around the field, shouting six or seven times before leaving.